LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER ONE

      ‘THAT WAS TOO close for comfort.’ Nurse Tamara Washington watched the paediatric intensive care team wheel their tiny patient towards the lift and PICC.

      ‘Every parent’s worst nightmare,’ Conor agreed as he dropped onto a chair at the emergency department’s work centre. ‘At one point I didn’t think we’d get him back.’

      The baby had stopped breathing while being examined to find what was causing his dangerously high temperature.

      ‘But you did. We did.’ Sometimes it astonished her that they were able to revive someone so young and small. Always it shook her up. Today... Today it had been hard to hold her emotions in. Too close, too frightening. What-ifs played in her head as she stared at the man typing in notes on the baby’s file. He needed to know.

      ‘Have I grown a wart on the back of my head?’ Conor asked in that Irish lilt that tightened her toes, and a whole lot of other areas of her body.

      ‘Can you spare me a few minutes at the end of the day?’ Tamara’s chest clenched as her reluctant question came out. A few minutes that would change Dr Maguire’s quiet, easy life for ever. No matter which path he took in response to the lightning bolt she had to deliver.

      ‘Sure.’ He tossed her a negligent eyebrows-raised glance. ‘What’s bugging you? More stuff about med school?’ He’d been more than patient with her over the application, and must think she was a pain in his gorgeous backside with her continual, often repetitive questions.

      Tamara glanced around Auckland Central Hospital’s ED, the place in which she felt most at home, and definitely most confident. This was where she knew her stuff.

      ‘That’s me. Crossing the “t”s and dotting the “i”s before I finally push “send”.’ Not even a reputed university had been going to get the better of her. These days she checked everything, over and over.

      ‘Those “t”s and “i”s will be so crossed and dotted they’ll be unrecognisable.’ Conor gave her one of his dynamic, tummy-tingling smiles.

      Except her stomach was far too tense to tingle. ‘Today’s the day I finish with it.’ Literally. Trash-bin finish. Training to become a doctor was the dream she’d been working towards all year. The dream she was so invested in had turned to dust over a thin blue line on a plastic stick. Two test kits, different brands, same result. No argument.

      Tamara’s left hand pressed, oh, so gently on her unhappy tummy while her teeth worried her bottom lip. At least her mouth was better occupied doing that than spewing out any of the thoughts mashing her up on the inside. This being in charge of her life was full of pitfalls, all of them deep and dangerous. It was her life, right? Sometimes she wondered.

      Conor cut through her worry. ‘As long as the shift doesn’t run over too much, let’s go to the local for a drink and food.’

      ‘No.’ Nausea swamped Tamara at the thought of greasy pub food. As for alcohol, forget that for a while. Sweat saturated the folds of her baggy scrubs. Since the first tweak of nausea on waking last Friday morning she’d been in a terrible state, gutted at the abrupt about-turn in her well-laid-out, Tamara-controlled plans. Of course she’d fought the obvious, denied the deepening despair, knowing she’d lost another round in life’s plans for her.

      ‘Why not?’ Conor looked bemused.

      He hadn’t spent the weekend fighting the inevitable. No, that started for him later today. ‘Can we stick to your office?’ So you can vent in private. ‘I won’t take up much of your time. Promise.’

      His kingfisher-blue eyes widened briefly. ‘This is about your application for university?’ As head of this emergency department, Conor had backed her all the way when she’d decided to start studying extramurally with the goal of entering med school next year.

      ‘For the absolute last time.’ No doubt there.

      ‘Right, my office when we’re done with headaches and broken bones.’

      His thick brogue wrapped around her, softening her heart when it needed to be steel, making her feel all mushy about him despite not wanting to feel anything for him. A sexy man with a whole lot more going for him, he was hard to ignore. They’d shared one night in his bed—with devastating consequences. No denying the tingle in her thighs and lower belly whenever he turned all Irish on her, though. But that was about the sex they’d shared. He’d been hot, and imaginative, and very, very good. Phew, her cheeks were warming at the memories. Of the sex. Nothing else. Sometimes she still pinched herself to make sure she hadn’t imagined it. Now she had the evidence. No more pinches.

      The strident sound of the buzzer from the ambulance bay curtailed any further discussion as Conor leapt up from the chair. ‘Here’s our guy.’ A car-versus-truck victim. Possible flail chest injury.

      Hurrying after the only man Tamara had been intimate with in years, her gaze automatically scanned Conor’s longish black hair at the back of his neck, remembering how she’d run her fingers through the glossy waves. That had been then. Today was a whole new ball game. Learning she was carrying his baby was going to knock Conor off his impeccable stride.

      Tamara heard the paramedic begin to give Conor her report on their latest stat one patient, and pulled on her professional face, straightened her back into its now usual, though false, don’t-fool-with-me, ramrod-straight line and pushed aside any thoughts not related to work.

      ‘Impact to the chest from the steering wheel, suspected broken ribs and perforated lungs.’

      Conor interrupted the woman. ‘Tamara, take over debrief. I’m getting this guy into Resus and the radiology technician onto him now.’ Calm belied the urgency of Conor’s statement; the only giveaway to his concern a thickening of that mouth-watering drawl. He was already rushing the stretcher towards Resus, a second ambulance officer with him moving as fast.

      Time was running out if their man had a flail chest. With broken ribs tearing holes in the lungs on every breath, the guy would simply run out of oxygen in very little time.

      ‘How long since the accident happened?’ she demanded of the paramedic, worried about the man’s chances of survival.

      ‘Approximately fifteen minutes ago. Just around the corner on Grafton Road. We were already on the road, heading to another accident, when the call came through. It was a load-and-go the moment we figured out what might be his major injury.’

      ‘Good on you for not hanging around, checking him out.’ Seemed something was on their patient’s side. ‘What else have you got?’

      As the paramedic listed the other injuries Jimmy Crowe had sustained, Tamara couldn’t help sighing with relief. She was going to be busy for the next hour, so her mind would stay shut down on everything else.

      ‘Tamara, we need oxygen happening,’ Conor called as she ran into Resus. ‘ASAP.’

      ‘Onto it.’ Tamara shoved the paperwork into another nurse’s hands. ‘Kelli, can you read these obs out to Conor?’ Reaching for the gas, she mentally crossed her fingers they weren’t too late and that some oxygen would do its job.

      She and Kelli worked in unison with Conor to get Jimmy’s bleeding and breathing under some sort of control. A cannula was slid into the left arm to allow for essential fluids to enter the man’s bloodstream.

      Michael, a registrar, joined them. ‘A steering-wheel injury?’

      Conor nodded. ‘Yes.’

      Tamara wiped blood from the man’s mouth. ‘This could back up the lung-damage theory.’

      ‘Stand back, everyone,’ the radiology tech called from

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